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April 21 2012

9:00 AM

The Valero Texas Open in San Antonio has seen a dichotomy of scores
through two rounds. The first round saw a 9-under par 63
posted and the second round was paced by a couple of rounds of
65. On the other side of the coin, the two-round cut fell at
4 over which, outside of The Masters, is the highest two-round cut
this year.

Immelman

The lesson we can learn from this week comes from one of
Texas’s favorite golfing sons: Ben Hogan. Hogan coined
many a quotable phrase and penned one of the most influential golf
instruction books, Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern
Fundamentals of Golf. This book has empowered many golfers,
including me, and as a result I feel like I need to pass on a
lesson from one of the greatest golfers from the great state of
Texas. The first lesson from Hogan is in reference to the quality
of your swing and I quote the master:
“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the
ball.” In other words, beautiful is as beautiful
does and aesthetics amount to absolutely nothing if the ball does
not perform as desired. Remember this when you video and
analyze your swing. No matter what you see on the video, the
real lesson is given by the flight of the ball. Bear that in
mind during your analysis. The second lesson from Ben Hogan is
given in his explanation of how he figured out the nuances of his
golf swing. Hogan stated that he “
dug the answers out of the dirt”. You too can
do so as the dirt, or the divot hole that you leave in the ground,
hides a lot of information that pertains to your swing. In summary,
the direction of the divot illustrates the direction of your swing
path at the base of the arc. If the divot point to the left
(for righties) the path is outside-to-in. Conversely if the
divot points to the right then the path is excessively
inside-to-out. The location of the divot can tell you where
the base of your swing is located and how your weight shift through
impact is working – a divot behind the center of the stance
shows a lack of forward weight shift and too shallow an
approach. A divot that is located past the center of the
swing (on the target side) shows that the weight shift is too
aggressive and that the approach is too steep. The depth of the
divot can also tell you how steep the angle of your approach is and
how much the leading edge of the club is pointing downwards at
contact. A deep divot shows a steep approach and a thin divot
shows a shallow approach. A divot that starts square and
thins toward a triangular shape at its end typically shows
excessive clubface “flipping” as a result of excessive
hand action through impact. A divot which is deep towards the
toe end shows a shaft angle through impact that is too vertical and
weak. Just for the record, an ideal divot is about the size and
shape of a Dollar bill; it is no deeper than the width of your
finger, and it points toward the target. So, dig the answers out of
the dirt, pay attention to your divot pattern and judge your
swing’s quality by the flight of the golf ball. Just
like Ben Hogan did… Good luck!